I have dim and distant memories of learning the contra-giro, but my only memory of actually using it is at Tango on the Thames with Steph and having a fantastic time just winging it!
I tried this during yesterday’s practice session, and it worked beautifully once, reasonably well other times and badly a couple of times! So tonight I decided to make that the focus of the lesson …
Continue reading Fake paradas, and connections in the contra-giro
I once swore I was never going to learn to lead voleos as I’d seen (and on one occasion felt) them led dangerously on quite a few occasions. But after a brain-melting lesson last week, I wanted to make sure we kept things simple this week.
I told David I wanted to understand the principles, work on my technique and then have him show me some variations – all of which was achieved …
Continue reading Voleo variations
David’s view of what I can manage is flattering, but not always entirely accurate! Cross-system always fries my brain, so a sequence involving crossing, uncrossing and then exiting in cross-system was never likely to end well – especially after I’d been woken at 4am by damned mosquitos and so was really tired.
I did, however, partly solve a mystery around this, and got five really useful things from the lesson …
Continue reading A mystery solved, and five take-outs from a lesson which fried my brain
I’m not looking for more figures, especially not complex ones, but sometimes a whole new type of figure can be a really effective way to open my eyes to new possibilities in terms of types of movement.
I would have sworn there couldn’t be a version of the forward ocho I didn’t know, but I was wrong …
Continue reading Wobbly leader crosses, but a less wobbly understanding
The resumption of milongas still feels a way off yet, but there are definite signs that the tango world is beginning to ready itself. Some group classes are resuming, albeit for solo technique or with fixed partners, and privates are resuming on the same basis.
But lessons are of limited value without practice, so Wai Fong and I did a practice session, trying out the things we’d been learning in our privates with David – managing to choose one of the hottest days of the year to do it …
When David asked what we wanted to focus on in tonight’s lesson with Wai Fong, I took a deep breath and asked him how realistic it would be to tackle a volcada.
My only previous experience of one was when it was just thrown in for fun at the end of a Tango Space improver class, but it had always struck me as a lovely-looking movement …
Continue reading An introduction to the world of off-axis dance
Monday saw our third lesson with David, again working on variations on things I already know.
The first of these was to lead a cross directly from the walk …
We’ve decided to make the lessons with David a weekly fixture during the tango famine, working on that same mix of technique, and variations on things I already know how to do.
We worked this week on the planeo …
I was shocked to look back in my blog and discover that it had been two months since my last virtual tango lesson, and a full 4.5 months since my last in-person one. Lockdown time flies by simply because there are so few events in our lives by which to measure time.
A friend has been raving about David and Kim Benitez for ages, and I’d been meaning to try a lesson with one or both of them. The gradual easing of lockdown rules provided the opportunity for at least a halfway-house lesson …
Continue reading My first in-person lesson in 4.5 months – and it was a great one!
I highly recommend this panel discussion. It’s two hours long, and I fully expected to listen to maybe half an hour of it to get a sense of some of the issues, but found it so engaging I ended up listening to the whole thing.
